Audlem is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

located in the unitary authority of

Cheshire East Cheshire East is a unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. The local authority is Cheshire East Council. Towns within the area include Crewe, Macclesfield, Co ...

and the ceremonial county of

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...

, approximately south of

Nantwich Nantwich ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the unitary authority of Cheshire East in Cheshire, England. It has among the highest concentrations of listed buildings in England, with notably good examples of Tudor and Georgian architecture. ...

. Close to the border with the neighbouring county of

Shropshire Shropshire (; alternatively Salop; abbreviated in print only as Shrops; demonym Salopian ) is a landlocked historic county in the West Midlands region of England. It is bordered by Wales to the west and the English counties of Cheshire to th ...

, the village is eight miles (13 km) east of Whitchurch and seven miles (11 km) north of

Market Drayton Market Drayton is a market town and electoral ward in the north of Shropshire, England, close to the Cheshire and Staffordshire borders. It is on the River Tern, and was formerly known as "Drayton in Hales" (c. 1868) and earlier simply as "D ...

. According to the 2001 census, the population of the entire civil parish was 1,790, increasing to 1,991 at the 2011 Census.

History

Audlem was mentioned in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manusc ...

as ''Aldelime'', and

Edward I Edward I (17/18 June 1239 – 7 July 1307), also known as Edward Longshanks and the Hammer of the Scots, was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1272 to 1307. Concurrently, he ruled the duchies of Aquitaine and Gascony as a vassal o ...

granted it a market charter in 1295.Scholes, R. (2000). pages 24–25.

Geography

Audlem is on the

Shropshire Union Canal The Shropshire Union Canal, nicknamed the "Shroppie", is a navigable canal in England. The Llangollen and Montgomery canals are the modern names of branches of the Shropshire Union (SU) system and lie partially in Wales. The canal lies in ...

, which has a flight of 15 locks, designed by

Thomas Telford Thomas Telford FRS, FRSE, (9 August 1757 – 2 September 1834) was a Scottish civil engineer. After establishing himself as an engineer of road and canal projects in Shropshire, he designed numerous infrastructure projects in his native Scotla ...

, to raise the canal from the

Cheshire Plain The Cheshire Plain is a relatively flat expanse of lowland within the county of Cheshire in North West England but extending south into Shropshire. It extends from the Mersey Valley in the north to the Shropshire Hills in the south, bounded b ...

to the Shropshire Plain. The

River Weaver The River Weaver is a river, navigable in its lower reaches, running in a curving route anti-clockwise across west Cheshire, northern England. Improvements to the river to make it navigable were authorised in 1720 and the work, which included ...

passes west of the village.

Audlem railway station Audlem railway station was a station on the former Great Western Railway between Market Drayton and Nantwich, opened in 1863. It served the village of Audlem in Cheshire, England until closure in 1963. The station was immortalised in the song ...

closed along with the local railway line in the 1960s.

Landmarks

Moss Hall is an

Elizabethan The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personifi ...

timber-framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

hall from 1616 from Audlem village centre.

Education and facilities

Audlem has clubs for

tennis Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent ( singles) or between two teams of two players each ( doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket that is strung with cord to strike a hollow rubber ball ...

badminton Badminton is a racquet sport played using racquets to hit a shuttlecock across a net. Although it may be played with larger teams, the most common forms of the game are "singles" (with one player per side) and "doubles" (with two players pe ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping wi ...

pigeon racing Pigeon racing is the sport of releasing specially trained homing pigeons, which then return to their homes over a carefully measured distance. The time it takes the animal to cover the specified distance is measured and the bird's rate of travel ...

(or pigeon-fancying), caravanning, bell ringing and

bowls Bowls, also known as lawn bowls or lawn bowling, is a sport in which the objective is to roll biased balls so that they stop close to a smaller ball called a "jack" or "kitty". It is played on a bowling green, which may be flat (for "flat-gre ...

Cyclist Cycling, also, when on a two-wheeled bicycle, called bicycling or biking, is the use of cycles for transport, recreation, exercise or sport. People engaged in cycling are referred to as "cyclists", "bicyclists", or "bikers". Apart from two ...

s meet informally at the Old Priest-House Cafe. Audlem has a website, AudlemOnline. Saint James' Primary School is the only school in the village.

Notable residents and associated people

Isabella Whitney Isabella Whitney (most likely born between 1546 and 1548, died after 1624); fl. 1566–1600) was arguably the first female poet and professional woman writer in England. More specifically, Whitney is credited with being the first Englishwoman to h ...

(c.1546/48–after 1624), the first woman known to have published secular poetry in the English language, grew up in Ryle Green when her father took a lease of a farm there. Her brother,

Geoffrey Whitney Geoffrey (then spelt Geffrey) Whitney (c. 1548 – c. 1601) was an English poet, now best known for the influence on Elizabethan writing of the ''Choice of Emblemes'' that he compiled. Life Geoffrey Whitney, the eldest son of a father of the sa ...

(c.1548–c.1601), is likewise believed to have been brought up there; also a poet, he is known for his collection ''Choice of Emblemes''. * William Baker (1705–71), architect, surveyor and building contractor, lived at Highfields from the 1740s. *

Field Marshal Field marshal (or field-marshal, abbreviated as FM) is the most senior military rank, ordinarily senior to the general officer ranks. Usually, it is the highest rank in an army and as such few persons are appointed to it. It is considered as ...

Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere Field Marshal Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere (14 November 1773 – 21 February 1865), was a British Army officer, diplomat and politician. As a junior officer he took part in the Flanders Campaign, in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War an ...

(1773–1865), soldier, associate of the

Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, (1 May 1769 – 14 September 1852) was an Anglo-Irish soldier and Tory statesman who was one of the leading military and political figures of 19th-century Britain, serving twice as prime minister of ...

, was educated at a grammar school then in Audlem for three years from age nine before entering

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

. *

Henry Lisle Henry Claud Lisle (12 December 1848 – 1916) was an English-born lawyer and political figure in Saskatchewan, Canada. He represented Lloydminster in the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan from 1908 to 1912 as a Liberal. He was born in Audlem, ...

(1846 in Audlem – 1916), lawyer and political figure in

Saskatchewan Saskatchewan ( ; ) is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada, western Canada, bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and on t ...

, Canada * Alice Elizabeth Gillington (1863 in Audlem – 1934), author, poet and journalist; published books about Gypsies * Mary Clarissa Gillington, later better known as May Byron (1861 in Audlem – 1936), author, poet, elder sister of Alice Gillington * Herbert Broomfield (1878 in Audlem – unknown), football goalkeeper, 28 pro appearances for

Bolton Wanderers F.C. Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...

Peter Ellson Peter Edward Ellson (21 August 1925 – 14 April 2014) was an English professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Career After playing for Crewe Railway Police, Ellson joined Crewe Alexandra in May 1949. He made 219 appearances in the ...

(1925 in Audlem – 2014), professional footballing goalkeeper, 219 pro appearances for

Crewe Alexandra F.C. Crewe Alexandra Football Club is an English professional association football club based in the town of Crewe, Cheshire, that competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system. Nicknamed 'The Railwaymen' because of ...

Peter McGarr Peter McGarr (born 28 May 1953) is an English classical composer and teacher, working in the English experimental tradition and inspired by Northern English landscape and culture. Biography McGarr was born in Openshaw, Manchester, and attended ...

(born 1953), classical composer and teacher; he has written several pieces inspired by Audlem ('Audlem Sonatas', 'Night-time' and 'Mourning Gamelan'), as homage to his mother, who lived in the village when she was a child. *

Margaret Canovan Margaret Canovan (1939–2018) was an English political theorist. Born in Carlisle in 1939, Canovan studied history at Girton College, Cambridge, where she subsequently completed a PhD on Joseph Priestley. She became a professor in the Politi ...

(1939–2018), political theorist, lived in Audlem from 1979 to 2003 while working at

Keele University Keele University, officially known as the University of Keele, is a public research university in Keele, approximately from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire, Keele ...

Notes and references

Notes

Bibliography

External links

Audlem Online

Audlem Special Events Team
* {{authority control Civil parishes in Cheshire Villages in Cheshire